On Wednesday, the UFC announced the rescheduling of the overdue fight between Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov for UFC 223 this April. However, it was not made clear if they will be fighting for the interim or undisputed lightweight title.
UFC president Dana White recently spoke about the possibility of stripping Conor McGregor of the title, which is why these fight stipulations are put into question. But according to SBG Ireland head coach John Kavanagh, the title of champion will belong to McGregor no matter what the agreement ends up to be.
“I’m hearing this at the same time as everyone else. I see there is a press conference that will happen tomorrow,” Kavanagh said in a recent Facebook live session (transcript via MMA Fighting). “I think Tony and Khabib, or else just Khabib, is being interviewed about the fight that Dana announced in April, which was news to me as well. Maybe they’re going to say it at that. Is it an interim title fight or is it a belt fight? I don’t know.”
“I think regardless of what way it’s sold, I think it’s still going to be known who the champion is,” he added. “I know that’s going to upset a lot of people, but there you go, that’s my opinion on it.”
“If it happens that those guys fight each other, and if it happens for the belt, they’re both going to think to themselves, ‘I’ve got to beat Conor to be really seen as the champion.’”
Kavanagh also touched on the matchup between Ferguson and Khabib and gave his own take on the fight.
“Let’s assume both get through their training camps, they’re both healthy, it happens and it’s five rounds,” Kavanagh said. “I think Tony will have some moments in the first round or two where he gets close with some guillotines or triangles, but I think Khabib powers out of them and wears him down as he does.”
“I don’t think he really has the stopping power to finish him,” Kavanagh said of Khabib. “His victory over Barboza was very impressive and so one-sided, but he didn’t really break him up. His face wasn’t bashed up and rearranged, it was more just the volume of shots and guard passing and so on.”
“I think that would start to wear on Tony and he’d start to steal rounds with takedowns. Yeah, Khabib by unanimous decision.”
UFC 223 is scheduled to take place on April 7th in Brooklyn, New York.